Starting, lighting, and ignition (SLI) batteries are typically used in automotive, recreational, and other applications, are heavy, cumbersome, and usually require two hands for carrying. The desirability of providing such batteries with attachable/detachable handles for facilitating carrying, placement, and retrieval of such batteries has long been known. Such handles are a particular convenience in batteries designed for use in boats or in uninterrupted power supply (UPS) applications which must be frequently moved for storage, service, or recharging.
Bail-type handles, which are known in the art, typically comprise a U- or C-shaped member attached to opposing sides of a battery casing, either on its container or cover. With such handles, the battery may be carried in much the same fashion as a picnic basket or bail.
Substantially rigid bail-type handles are known in the art. A variety of such handle designs have been proposed for carrying batteries. Detachable, substantially rigid bail handles are disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,093,515 to Rector, U.S. Pat. No. 3,956,022 to Fox, U.S. Pat. No. 4,029,248 to Lee, U.S. Pat. No. 4,673,625 to McCartney et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,232,796 to Baumgartner, U.S. Pat. No. 5,242,769 to Cole et al., and U.S. Pat. Des. 292,696 to Sahli.
Rope-type handles are likewise known in the art. Rope-type handles typically have one or more injection molded plastic parts coupled by flexible rope sections and, accordingly, are physically highly flexible. The rope sections are generally a braided synthetic material such as polypropylene.
According to one type of rope handle design, the ends of the rope handle are manually fed into two holes and coupled to the battery container. In the battery disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,092,520 to Buskirk et al. the rope handle is coupled to the battery container by cementing the ends of the rope in recesses in projections on the sides of the battery container. Alternately, the ends of the rope handle may include an enlarged molded plastic portion and may be pressed into slots underneath the handle bracket area as shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,797876 to Gummelt and U.S. Pat. No. 4,013,819 to Grabb. According to other designs, the ends of the rope may be enlarged as shown for example in British Patent 869,329, or the ends coupled or welded together as shown for example in British Patent 869,329 and British Patent 1,453,977.
Rope handle designs have also included looped rope portions extending from the ends of a molded plastic grip portion as shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 971,876 to Apple, U.S. Pat. No. 4,791,702 to McVey, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,242,769 to Cole et al. The looped rope portions are then coupled to the battery container via dedicated protrusions extending from the walls of the battery by looping the rope around the protrusion and then securing it into a recess or the like.
Installation of these rope handle designs, however, may be labor intensive. Threading the ends of the rope through openings and properly securing the ends to the battery container, or securing the loop ends around a protrusion and into a recess can be quite time consuming. Moreover installation of rope handles generally requires the operator or user to have full access to walls of the battery to manipulate the flexible rope.
Additionally, these designs generally require specialized handle brackets to be molded into specific containers. This can result in increased costs in the form of mold and tooling costs, as well as increased labor and downtime costs during changeover. Further, storage and floor space costs increase, as the battery manufacturer must maintain larger inventories.